pROBings

Menu

The Power of Win-Win

Relationships of all sorts are sometimes hard to build and to maintain. They naturally involve other people who are not always as easy as ourselves to get along with! Whether feisty or non-communicative, others are a curious blend of all sorts of differences that we do well to stop and appreciate with genuine interest for them and their welfare, whilst also articulating the needs we might reasonably expect from the people in our lives.

One of the most helpful principles in building relational currency is to consider how our interactions can become ‘win-win’ situations, to borrow a term from Steven Covey’s impacting book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. This concept is popularly advocated elsewhere, too. In his book The People Factor, Van Moody advocates synergistic relationships, whereas Rick Warren asks us to be people who are Becoming Better Together. The idea is that we seek the interests and benefit of others and not just of ourselves.

This sometimes needs us to find the common voice in disputes, to lay aside those things that don’t really matter and to also prefer building the future to bickering over the past. When we can be reflectors of any unconditional love and acceptance we receive from others (especially from God who accepts us in spite of our imperfections), we learn to also strip away the expectations we place on people with whom we are in conflict and to truly love without attaching conditions. We also find ourselves then seeking to understand before we are understood. None of this precludes our own needs, it just contextualises them within the value of joint benefit and this enhances our own needs, anyway.

This win-win interest in others is advocated in the Bible too. Philippians 2:3-4 asks us to imitate the example of Christ as we ‘look out for the interest of others’ and ‘esteem’ them. As with most contemporary philosophy that has a ring of truth and relevance, it has all been said before!

Archives

Blogroll

Consultancy Support

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Currently Reading

Currently Reading

Note on the Use of this Website

I welcome (but cannot promise to respond to) all brief comments made by those identifying themselves with their real full name. However, I reserve the right to reject those which include remarks likely to be offensive to others, including any personal attacks. All content is copyright Rob Nyhuis.

Copyright

All text on this site is copyright Rob Nyhuis. It is a criminal offence and a violation of Christian ethics to use this information in any form without permission from the author.